In our last number we congratulated our readers that Fitz Helicon had completed his poem, which though the verse was careless and unpolished, was received with considerable approbation. The story is well conducted, the machinery happily introduced, and the whole brought to a satisfactory conclusion, without diverging into digressions or being encumbered with unnecessary circumstances.
The Constellation forms so happy an episode to the Muses Vagaries, that had it appeared at some other stage of that poem, we should have supposed it the work of the same author though the verse is different and perhaps inferior in spirit. But as Fitz Pieria appears to be equally dexterous in every kind of verse, the difference we think we perceive may be only an ingenious mode of disguise, and at the winding up of the whole we have still some suspicion that we shall find the two signatures belong to the same author. Be this as it may we expect with impatience the continuation of the Muses Vagaries, and regret that any cause whatever it may be should keep Fitz Pieria so long silent.
We present our readers with an elegant Sonnet to the Cicada or Grasshopper which the fair authoress as by an error of the press written ‘cicala’. The hint seems to have been taken from the Forty-third Ode of Anacreon, of which we present a translation by another hand, the poem in the original is esteemed uncommonly beautiful and has never so far as we know been so happily versified as other poems of the same author. We shall therefore propose the versification of the Ode as a trial of skill to our auditors, among whom the learned will have recourse to the Greek. The unlearned will find the sense of the original rendered with tolerable fidelity by Madame Dacier and other French writers and by several English poets.
The story of Zeladai and the Shepherd Aleidon we believe to be a translation from the French.
It appears to be a juvenile production and though it is not distinguished by much invention, or overloaded with incidents, it may be heard without displeasure. We also present our readers with two versions of the first Ode of Anacreon, which like the Forty-third has engaged the attention of many Poets who have versified it with various success.
We have laughed over the mournful Elegy of Fitz Pieria just received who notwithstanding this sorrowful composition we still hope to find in existence and expect the continuation of a poem so happily begun with a degree of impatience very great though not more than the commencement will justify, however dense the cloud which conceals him we anxiously wait the time when he shall burst through, and shower upon us not such rain as confin’d Cyllenius to the tavern but the genuine water of his paternal spring.
The news of Pegasus’s restoration to gods and men we should receive with pleasure did we not know it to be only one of those fallacious rumours so frequently propagated in all newspapers.
It is impossible that the steed could be again called from his starry station after the Thunderer had granted Thalia’s request and confirmed the completion of his promise by
The nod
The stamp of Fate and sanction of the God.
The nod that ratifies the will divine
The faithful, fixed, irrevocable sign.Vide Pope’s Homer
And though “the more recent astronomers have left out the animal figures in their drafts of the heavens” the Editor and Editress believe that none will maintain that they have left out the Stars or have even changed their situation in the heavens, probably they have only omitted the delineation of the constellations through ignorance of the noble art of drawing. We, however, think the author of the Ode has shown considerable talents, and is a genuine descendant from Pindar, not Peter Pindar but Pindar of Thebes.
The Mob Cap we promised the last Attic evening we now give to our auditors and request them to decide whether Kate or Ralph has the best of the argument
To wear the Mob or not that is the Question
Of the correspondence between the Genie of the Attic and Roberto we hope the continuance and conclusion. Roberto’s feigned ignorance of his aetherical flight will not be received as gospel truth by those who are acquainted with the propensity of travellers to exaggerate whatever redounds to their honour, and to conceal or cast into shade whatever may have a contrary effect. Roberto however does not appear in a light that will shew him to disadvantage, and we ascribe his reluctance to acknowledge his adventures to the fever occasioned by the collision of his head with the planet whose fractures have added so much renown to the observing talents of modern astronomers.